File Photo (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By James Peters

Truth and Reconciliation

“Do the right thing”: MP-elect Caputo implores PM Trudeau to pay respects at Tk’emlups te Secwepemc

Oct 1, 2021 | 1:59 PM

KAMLOOPS — In one of his first acts since he was elected last Monday (Sept. 20), Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo MP-elect Frank Caputo has penned a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

In the letter, Caputo chides Trudeau for his absence in Tk’emlups te Secwepemc territory — not only on Thursday’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, but at any time since May, when Tk’emlups revealed the findings of unmarked graves belonging to students at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.

Trudeau joined his family for a vacation in Tofino Thursday, though he said he spent significant time on the phone with Indigenous elders on his way west from Ottawa.

“Canadians look to the prime minister for leadership in these situations,” Caputo wrote. “We cannot change the mistakes made over the past months, which I implore you to acknowledge, but I am calling on you to do the right thing by visiting the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc grave sites in the coming weeks.”

Caputo told CFJC Today he has been informed Trudeau did not even respond to multiple invitations from Kukpi7 Rosanne Casimir to attend Thursday’s ceremonies at the Tk’emlups Powwow Arbour.

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“On a very important day, he took that day for a vacation — and not only a vacation, a vacation in the province here,” Caputo said. “It wasn’t as though he was far away; he was actually quite proximate to Tk’emlups te Secwepemc and could have easily made his way out here, unless there’s certainly something we don’t know about.”

“It’s such an important day that we have to recognize and, simply put, it’s not generally a day that one would consider for a vacation — especially when the prime minister is in the province of the place where this discovery occurred and was formally invited.”

Caputo attended Thursday’s ceremony in between parliamentary orientation sessions.

“It was a beautiful, heartwarming ceremony that occurred and I was really pleased to listen to all of the speakers who were there,” Caputo said.

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